To close out my posts on game mechanics, now I'll finally talk about how you win and how you lose!
Players will have to work together to rescue captives from the coldbringer lairs. This is another something that's not totally nailed down yet, but currently I'm thinking that when the game begins, the kidnapped victims are randomly assigned to monster lairs (there are 3) along with some bystanders (the bystanders are also abduction victims, but they aren't part of the win conditions). A skill token is randomly assigned to each victim. These skill tokens represent the five skills, and determine which skill you need to use to save which victim.
Players will have to work together to rescue captives from the coldbringer lairs. This is another something that's not totally nailed down yet, but currently I'm thinking that when the game begins, the kidnapped victims are randomly assigned to monster lairs (there are 3) along with some bystanders (the bystanders are also abduction victims, but they aren't part of the win conditions). A skill token is randomly assigned to each victim. These skill tokens represent the five skills, and determine which skill you need to use to save which victim.
The players win by rescuing all the victims tied to their characters (for the first playtest these will simply be people tokens with a different border colour). Victims will be face down, so you won't know who you're rescuing until you... well, rescue them. Rescuing a bystander awards an item, but doesn't directly help you win.
Here's where the teamwork element comes in. The difficulties for the rescue skill checks will be very high. Each player in the monster lair adds their skill modifiers together for a total, and then you roll to try to beat the difficulty. To pick completely arbitrary numbers since I haven't playtested yet, let's say you need to beat a difficulty of 40 on a combat check to rescue a particular victim. 3 players are on the lair tile. Player A has +10 combat, player B has +12 combat, and player C has +8 combat. Add those together for a modifier of +30 combat, and roll against the 40 difficulty, requiring a 10 or better to rescue that victim.
(Important note: I don't really like this. It requires players to work together, pool their skills, and communicate with each other as the game goes on. However, it's just rolling some dice. That's not very fun for a big finale. I'd like to come up with something better eventually.)
(Important note: I don't really like this. It requires players to work together, pool their skills, and communicate with each other as the game goes on. However, it's just rolling some dice. That's not very fun for a big finale. I'd like to come up with something better eventually.)
Play continues until all the victims have been rescued or until everyone dies. But wait, everyone dies? Didn't I say that when you lose all your health you go back to town and get 1 health back? (really, did I? ...yeah, I did. Whew.)
Here's the thing. Coldbringers aren't just random monsters that move around randomly. Well, I did say earlier that they move around randomly, but I've changed my mind. Game development! What happens now is that they'll move towards the town. If a certain number of coldbringers occupy the town (dependent on number of players), the town is destroyed or frozen over or whatever I'm going to call it. From that point on, no respawns - if you lose all your health, you die for real. Thus, it'll be important to keep track of coldbringer movement and to try to keep their population under control.
I'm not totally satisfied with this lose condition - for one thing, it does something that I tried to avoid with the town in the first place: knocks people permanently out of the game. So expect this to change in the future, or for me to come up with something for dead players to do while they're dead, because I hate to kick people out of the game. It's just not fun.
Here's the thing. Coldbringers aren't just random monsters that move around randomly. Well, I did say earlier that they move around randomly, but I've changed my mind. Game development! What happens now is that they'll move towards the town. If a certain number of coldbringers occupy the town (dependent on number of players), the town is destroyed or frozen over or whatever I'm going to call it. From that point on, no respawns - if you lose all your health, you die for real. Thus, it'll be important to keep track of coldbringer movement and to try to keep their population under control.
I'm not totally satisfied with this lose condition - for one thing, it does something that I tried to avoid with the town in the first place: knocks people permanently out of the game. So expect this to change in the future, or for me to come up with something for dead players to do while they're dead, because I hate to kick people out of the game. It's just not fun.
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